THE USE OF LIME FOR POULTRY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 5 October 1907, Page 1

THE USE OF LIME FOR POULTRY.

Any article which one reads, dealing with the management of breeding stock, •eems to be incomplete if it does not contain the advice that the birds are to be regularly and unfailingly supplied with lime for shell-making. It is asserted that the birds require a large quantity of lime wherewith to make their egg-shells, and poultry keepers are advised to feed largely on those foods which are rich in lime, to place some lime in the drinking water, and to keep oyster-shells, old mortar, and some such shell-making substances in the runs. h, may or may not be necessary that all this advice should be taken ; but a friend of mine, who is a most practical poultry breeder, and has been very successful in artificial hatching and ■■earing, has recently been pointing out 0 me that some of it ought to be taken with a grain cf salt. His contention is that fowls are ordinarily fed too much lime in their food, and as ail extra, and that the reason why so many Incubator eggs •on tain fully developed chicks which 'iave failed to get out of their shells is that the shells of the eggs are too thick and hard, because of the abnormal consumption of lime on the part of the fowls which have laid the eggs. He further asserts that when eggs are to be hatched in incubators there is no reason whatever why they should have shells as hard as plaster of Paris, and he states that having made the most r-ireful and exhaustive experiments in hatching eggs in incubators, he has nroved to his own entire satisfaction ihat he can get 20 per cent more chicks from thin-shelled than from thick*h».lled eggs. lam not in a position to say. from actual experience, whether this rtile will hold good universally or ■•'I -. but I should not be surprised if there were something in my friend's uggestion,' and, at any rate, it will not hurt those who have failed to hatch n incubators as satisfactory as they would wish, to make some trial on their own account. It is certain that even the strongest shelled eggs do not fail to hatch when placed under a hen ; but this docs not prove that the same is true ;f them ia an incubator, for it is generally admitted that, though the incubator is quite the equal of the hen in many respects , it cannot do all that a hen does in the way of hatching. It will not, for example, hatch eggs as stale as 'they can behatchedby ahen,and who can say that it will hatch them as •trong-shelled as they can be hatched iy a hen ? It has frequently been stated that it is riot so easy to hatch brown -ihcllcd eggs in an incubator as whitehe'.led ones, and the eggs of Brahma hens have been given as an example as ihe most difficult of all eggs to hatch by artificial process. If this is true, nobody will contend that it is the colour of the eggs which prevent the hatching, and the reasonable conclusion at which we must arrive is that it is because of the abnormal strength of the shell. The shell is certainly harder and ticker in most brown eggs than in white ones, and if less lime were fed to such breeds as the Brahma. Cochin, and Langshan. it is not improbable that their eggs would hatch more satisfactorily in incubators. I have personally within the present season received letters from six prominent breeders, asking for advice regarding the failure of eggs to hatch in incubators, although the chicks died in the shells only when fully ' developed. There is nothing new in this, and the problem still remains unI solved, becauso there are so many things which may contribute to the state of affairs complained of; but it seems to I m? something more than a coincidence that five out of the six breeders who ! h*ve written referred to Langshan, • ' Black Orpington, and Cochin China j eggs — all brown-shelled eg{.s— and only ; ' ono complained of failure cf Minorca eggs. . It is natural, of course, for hens on i range to pick up as much lime as they 1 ' require, and this does not interfere I. with the hatching-of their eggs when the eggs are incubated in the natural ' way : but when we put eggs into an - inruW'M- -ne depart at once from the r natural nrocess, and who shall say that • it would not be well to deviate also 1 from the natural way of feeding the fowls which lay the eggs, by allowing I them less shell making material.— H. d< 1 Courcy in "Feathered Life."